Poland to withdraw from convention banning anti-personnel landmines
Poland has announced that they will be withdrawing on 20 February from the Ottawa Convention on banning the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel mines, Polish Radio reported on 16 February.
Joanna Kluzik-Rostkowska, deputy head of the parliamentary National Defence Committee, is reported to have said that Ukraine’s wartime experience underscored the importance of such capabilities.
"At the start of the invasion, Ukrainians used nearly three million anti-personnel mines along the border, which significantly slowed the Russians' advance. It simply turned out that these mines are needed. It was clear that in the event of any conflict, anti-personnel mines would appear on Polish territory anyway. The only question is whether they would be Russian mines or our own," she said.
Although withdrawing from the convention will clear the way for Poland to manufacture and store the weapons, Kluzik-Rostkowska added that it is too early to discuss the production of the mines or the locations where they would be stored.
Citing the clear change in the regional security dynamic since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia all withdrew from the Ottawa Convention in 2025. Finland withdrew on 10 January 2026.
On 29 June 2025, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky enacted a National Security and Defence Council decree on Ukraine’s withdrawal from Ottawa Convention. Ukraine had initially ratified it in 2005.
